At the moment, Pokemon fans everywhere are preoccupied with today's announcement regarding the release dates for the next major Pokemon games: the Diamond and Pearl remakes and the open-world Pokemon Legends: Arceus. And this news risks overshadowing some new updates coming to Pokemon Home, the service which acts as a cloud storage system for the Pokemon that players catch.
The features themselves are relatively minor, with the real draw of the update being that they will come with a couple of special and free Pokemon for players to add to their collection. Specifically, Bulbasaur and Squirtle, the Grass and Water starter Pokemon from the original Pokemon Red and Blue games.
The two will be added as Mystery Gifts and can be received either through the mobile version of Pokemon Home or through Pokemon Sword and Shield. Since they're starter Pokemon and usually can't be caught in the wild, these two are very rare to get a hold of in most of the games. It's not as much of a problem nowadays, though, as they can be found in the wild in the two Pokemon: Let's Go games and Pokemon GO.
However, what makes these particular Bulbasaur and Squirtle stand out is that they will come with the Gigantamax factor, meaning they can naturally enter their unique Gigantamax forms once they've evolved into Venusaur and Blastoise respectively. It is possible to obtain them with the Gigantamax factor in Sword and Shield through the Isle of Armor DLC, but players can only be gifted with one of them.
The only other alternative is to catch a Bulbasaur or Squirtle in another game, transfer it to Pokemon Sword and Shield, and then feed it Max Soup, which unlocks the Gigantamax form. So, while it was never impossible, these Mystery Gifts skip all the rigmarole and let players focus on leveling them up to their final evolutions.
In case anyone is wondering why the Fire starter, Charmander, isn't included with this, that's because a Charmander with the Gigantamax factor can already be acquired in Sword and Shield. After defeating the champion, Leon, and visiting his house, players will find a Charmander there as a gift, which can then Gigantamax once it's evolved into Charizard, just like Leon's own Charizard.
For those wondering what the new Home features actually are, the first is a Catch Calendar. This will allow users to keep track of when they caught their Pokemon and can be used to set up anniversaries, meaning fans can celebrate the day when they first encountered their favorite Pokemon, for example.
The second is simply an updated Pokedex, which will let users examine Pokemon registered to it from different angles. An exact date for when the features and the Pokemon will be added hasn't been given, but they're slated to arrive in June.
Pokemon Home is available now on Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch.
Source: Pokemon